Senators call for end to anonymous, prepaid cell phones

Long the scourge of law enforcement, anonymous prepaid cell phones could soon …

Earlier this month, the FBI revealed that the suspected Times Square bomber had used an anonymous prepaid cell phone to purchase the Nissan Pathfinder and M-88 fireworks used in the bomb attempt. The case sparked new calls to regulate prepaid cell phones in order to provide more accountability and make the devices less attractive to criminals. Yesterday, Congress responded.

Senators Charles Schumer (D-NY) and John Cornyn (R-TX) joined forces and announced a new bill that would require an ID at the point of sale. Phone companies would need to keep this information on file in order to help police thwart "terrorists, drug lords and gang members," along with the occasional hedge fund manager.

"In 2009," said the Schumer/Cornyn announcement, "[prepaid cell phones] were even used by hedge fund managers and Wall Street executives implicated in the largest insider trading bust in US history. In court papers, federal prosecutors detailed how traders from the Galleon Group hedge fund communicated with other executives through prepaid phones in order to try to evade potential wiretaps. In one instance, one suspect is described as having chewed the Subscriber Identity Module, or SIM card, until it snapped in half in order to destroy possible evidence."

"We caught a break in catching the Times Square terrorist, but usually a prepaid cell phone is a dead end for law enforcement. There’s no reason why it should still be this easy for terror plotters to cover their tracks," said Schumer.

Prepaid phones can be bought over the counter in many different stores, from big-box retailers to gas stations, and many can be activated without credit checks or ID.

Some countries have already forbidden this sort of anonymous use. The Canadian government funded a study on this question back in 2006. A team from Simon Fraser University looked at 24 OECD countries and found that nine of them require mobile operators to collect registration data for prepaid phone users.

"In all cases, the rationale for a prepaid registration requirement was to improve efficiency of law enforcement and national security activities," said the report.

US states have followed suit; similar laws have been introduced in Texas, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Georgia and South Carolina, according to Schumer and Cornyn. But "in light of the increased reliance of terrorists on the devices," the senators said, "it was time for a federal response."

This is just like not being able to have bottles with you at airplanes, utter bs. Why can't I just get a hobo to identify himself, then give me the phone or simcard? This is only going to increase cost for consumers and utterly compromise privacy. What if I just don't want anyone tracking me down, is that illegal? This is just criminalizing everyone. People shouldn't be allowed to pay for Pathfinders in cash anymore, they might explode somewhere.

Seriously, who didn't see this one coming? Surprised it didn't happen sooner, but once again its "cause the terrorists!" Personally, I think they are a necessary evil, anonymous communication is as important for free speech/public dissent as it is for criminal activity. Now phones might not be but I think people should be able to communicate to others without worrying about being "tracked" all the time.

The right to privacy through anonymous phone numbers, email, online handles and whatever other means is absolutely required for a freedom-loving nation (which the US certainly likes to THINK it is) to function fully and properly with power in the hands of the people. You just have to take the bad with the good and combat it some other way that doesn't impact privacy.

If they want to get rid of prepaid phones I say, "Take them away!", but there had better be a way where I can have a cell phone with no credit check and no contract and not have to pay an arm and a leg for the hardware.

What about all the people who don't have credit cards? How are they supposed to get a phone?

The return of pay phones, then?

Noone is saying you need a credit card, just a form of ID when you purchase the phone so they can have a name to go with the number if it shows up during an investigation. And it is plenty easy to get an ID card so it's hardly an excuse.

This is just like not being able to have bottles with you at airplanes, utter bs. Why can't I just get a hobo to identify himself, then give me the phone or simcard? This is only going to increase cost for consumers and utterly compromise privacy. What if I just don't want anyone tracking me down, is that illegal? This is just criminalizing everyone. People shouldn't be allowed to pay for Pathfinders in cash anymore, they might explode somewhere.

In the United States you are now treated as a potential criminal unless you are able to prove your not.

Finding bipartisan support for anything in Congress can seem a minor miracle these days, but Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) may have hit on something -- empty symbols of patriotic fervor. Together with Republican Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts and one Democratic and one Republican representative from Pennsylvania, Lieberman has proposed a law that would strip Americans of their citizenship if they provide "material support" to terrorist organizations. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have expressed their support in principle.

The explaination for this is that it's already legal for the government to expatriate you if you have pledged alegiance to another country. The idea for that is that when you join a foriegn country's military you are sworn in and that act of being sworn in your abandoning your citizenship. So the pro-terrorist expatriate folks are saying that this is just a extension of that to cover people that join terrorists groups.

The part that they are leaving out is that in order to get expatriated you have to be taken to court and the government has to have prove a 'preponderance of the evidence', which is a 51:49 type proof used in things like some civil cases.

The difference with this bill is that your stripped of your citizenship by simple _accusation_ and then AFTER your citizenship is stripped then your immediately go to trial via military tribunal. This is entirely different and blatenly unconstitutional.

The deal is also that anybody can accuse you. Say... you piss of a country like Iran and they accuse you of being a terrorist. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, Sen. Scott Brown, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi beleives that if that happens then the USA government has the right to strip you of your citizenship and try you in a military tribunal as if you were a war criminal.

Of course this is soooo blatently unconstitutional that if anybody actually got expatriated and sent to a CIA camp in Afganastan or something like then the lawyers would quickly be able to destroy the Government's case in a appeals court....

But if it was so horrible and badly written made why would people like H. Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Scott Brown, and the rest of all them giving their support to it?

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If I want to be anonymous on a phone, or just purchase a phone plan using cash, then it's none of the USA Government's F-ing business. Screw all of them.

News flash: New threat to your children, drug dealers and terrorists and other baddies talk to each other in person. Gov can't figure out how to stop this tragic communication scheme. Mom's scared. news at 11.

with all the damn money we pay these congressmen...i would think that they would be better informed on how the world works...if somebody wants to communicate without being tracked its gonna take a lot more than simply requiring an id at the time of purchase. if anything its pretty damn easy to steal a cell phone (which by the way is already against the law), and if you are gonna break the law why not just break 2 laws. or like stated above...pay the hobo to purchase it...ebay...there are a million ways to acquire a working sim card that will not directly link to the actual user...

as far as i can tell, politicians have spoon fed our country so much propaganda regarding terrorism and child porn, that in order to legitimize any unlawful wire tap, search and seizure, or any other act that violates our bill of rights, all they have to do is claim its in the name of terrorism or child porn...the public thinks as long as we are getting these terrorist and child molesters its okay to tread on our rights...what a shame...

good thing for smart phones...encrypted voip and other forms of encrypted data communications will be nearly impossible to track and will simply pick up where pre-paid phones left off for criminals...which means ultimately this law will only negatively affect the poorest people in this country by raising the bar for cell phone ownership...

Aside from fake IDs (which are already illegal), there are other legal issues that will need to be dealt with. "Straw man" purchases (ie someone buying a phone for another person, sometimes called a "gift") will need to be outlawed, and private-party sales of used phones will need to be conducted through a government-licensed and -registered phone dealer.

This will clearly make all phones traceable, just as similar rules have made all firearms traceable.

News flash: New threat to your children, drug dealers and terrorists and other baddies talk to each other in person. Gov can't figure out how to stop this tragic communication scheme. Mom's scared. news at 11.

Sheesh does anybody not know how to read?! Credit checks, and searches are not being deemed mandatory. Just talking about having to show ID to link it to the purchase. This is already mandated in most Eurpoean countries which ars seems to love. So I do not see what the issue is.

And Dandenoth, you do need to show ID to vote, especially here in the States. They need to confirm the person voting against the voters roll. This helps avoid voter fraud.

with all the damn money we pay these congressmen...i would think that they would be better informed on how the world works...if somebody wants to communicate without being tracked its gonna take a lot more than simply requiring an id at the time of purchase. if anything its pretty damn easy to steal a cell phone (which by the way is already against the law), and if you are gonna break the law why not just break 2 laws. or like stated above...pay the hobo to purchase it...ebay...there are a million ways to acquire a working sim card that will not directly link to the actual user...

as far as i can tell, politicians have spoon fed our country so much propaganda regarding terrorism and child porn, that in order to legitimize any unlawful wire tap, search and seizure, or any other act that violates our bill of rights, all they have to do is claim its in the name of terrorism or child porn...the public thinks as long as we are getting these terrorist and child molesters its okay to tread on our rights...what a shame...

good thing for smart phones...encrypted voip and other forms of encrypted data communications will be nearly impossible to track and will simply pick up where pre-paid phones left off for criminals...which means ultimately this law will only negatively affect the poorest people in this country by raising the bar for cell phone ownership...

Why? Because poor people do not have IDs? Where is the roll eyes when you need 'em?!

If one is going to go to all the trouble to bomb Times Square, then that person's just going to get a fake ID. End of problem. Another knee-jerk law by the intellectually compromised congress.

Not to nit pick, but it isn't law yet. Tons of crappy ideas are thrown around everywhere when standing in front of the drawing board no matter where you go. Congress is no exception. It's the finalized decisions which matter.

With that said, keep up the good work everyone. Expressing ideas and pointing out discrepancies like the fake ID loophole on the internet for all to see contributes towards our system of checks and balances. Hopefully, word will get around to those who make the decisions.

with all the damn money we pay these congressmen...i would think that they would be better informed on how the world works..

Well:A) Paying people lots of money does not make people intellegent or give them common sense.

B) These people get elected by convincing about 10-15%* of the population that they are not constantly full of shit and should be their elected represetative by lying to them about it.These people _stay_ elected by pulling crap like this and doing things that will probably never actually make it to law, but makes them look good by trying.

* That's a generous estimation of the amount of people that actually partipate in elections. The way the USA election system works now is that only a small number of people actually are the ones that make choices on who is in government; because they are the ones that actually show up to vote.

C) They know how the world work well enough: It's just that they don't give a shit.

D) They believe that because they are the government they have the right to tell the world how it should work.

I could support the initiative if I thought it would actually make a difference in how safe a nation is.

The comparision to 9/11 is apt, the security measures instigated since 2001 have been increasingly intrusive, and apparently just as useless.It's easier for governments to create hugely intrusive security measures that SEEM effective, than it is to actually create a working, realistic solution.

(Especially if that solution would entail admitting internally, that perhaps some actions taken in the last decade could probably ahead of time have been predicted to cause exactly the results they did. Not to go too soapboxy).

Sheesh does anybody not know how to read?! Credit checks, and searches are not being deemed mandatory. Just talking about having to show ID to link it to the purchase. This is already mandated in most Eurpoean countries which ars seems to love. So I do not see what the issue is.

The "issue" is that it is just one more step towards reducing the privacy of legal citizens, and the efforts needed to enforce such a law are not free. In other words, it is a sacrifice. The problem is that we are not getting anything in return for the sacrifice. This idea is not going to work for the reasons that many have already stated.

I wouldn't mind so much if I thought that it would work as intended, but it won't so what's the point? Why sacrifice something for nothing? It reminds me of invasive DRM.

The right to privacy through anonymous phone numbers, email, online handles and whatever other means is absolutely required for a freedom-loving nation (which the US certainly likes to THINK it is) to function fully and properly with power in the hands of the people. You just have to take the bad with the good and combat it some other way that doesn't impact privacy.

QFT. A free society has risks. Once upon a time, Americans felt the relatively small risks we have to deal with here were worth the rewards of a free society.

As for "papers, please," you only have to go to Arizona and not be blonde haired and blue-eyed for that.

I'm not really concerned about the whole "paper's please" or "this is against poor people" or whatever people's agendas are above. I'm just pissed on how knee-jerk, reactionary and micro-managed Congress is.

Don't the senators have anything to do? In that case we don't need them, right?I think they should first work on the pieces of important legislation they already have on their desks and leave such minor nonsense alone.But useless "work" on "terrorism-related-stuff" brings many political points, so it definitely counts for more than dealing with the economy, healthcare, environment, etc..Good job, dear senators!

Trying to objectively look at the situation, i really dont see how this is a bad thing. The amazing thing is the bill has bi-partisan support. At least a democrat and republican are sponsoring the bill. What does burn my butt is that I have to provide identification to buy sudafed. Instead they try and convice me to get sub-par medicine. I want sudafed i am not a meth maker, I just have a runny nose.